I pounded the streets, walking really hard, and then I heard Reedy’s cruiser pull up beside me. I couldn’t believe it, it was seven at night. Didn’t this guy take any time off?
“Hey Jack,” he said, stopping the car.
I kept walking and he inched along beside me. “What’s the matter?”
“Leave me alone, I don’t have to talk to you.”
“Why, what are you hiding?”
“This is against the law,” I said, “you can’t question me unless I have a lawyer present.”
“I can ask anything I want. You don’t have to answer, but I can ask.”
We came to a standstill.
“Don’t waste your breath,” I told him.
“Come on kid, tell me what I need to know.”
I thrust my face into his.
“I killed Gaylord Joyner. I’m the one that did it.”
Reedy jerked his head backwards. And then he burst out laughing. “You’re a comedian, I get it!”
His car accelerated. I went back to the house and saw the mismatching tires on the rear of the Ford (Pop had replaced the ones that got slashed)—the commode that Pop had left in the side yard—a rusty lawn mower in front. That was Witcher House…. I sat on the porch. It wasn’t two minutes later that Snead’s truck pulled up. I moaned and scrambled for my room. As I swung the door closed it jammed against something, and Mom moved her foot away.
She pulled me to the bed and took me in her arms.
“I can’t hold you forever,” she told me.
“What if Stan killed Gaylord?”
“Don’t say that. Your brother might be mean but he would never kill anyone.” She tightened her hold to prevent me from saying anything else.
“I think he would kill someone. I think he’d kill me if he got mad enough.”
“How can you say that?”
“Mom, look at the guy.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I told Reedy I killed Gaylord Joyner.”
“What!”
“He’s trying to get me to tell him something so he can arrest Stan.”
“Why on earth did you tell him you killed Gaylord?”
“He laughed when I said it.”
“Are you crazy? That’s gonna make him think the Witchers had something to do with it even more.”
“I do think Stan killed Gaylord, I really do.”
“Stop that, I don’t wanna hear that kind of talk.”
She left the room.
I got in bed. I heard indistinct voices at my window and chords coming from Snead’s guitar.
I snuck out the back door and ran across the lot to the north end, where Pop and Snead wouldn’t see. Then I went in the other direction, not wanting to pass Myra’s.
Two or three kids were messing around at the drainage pipe and I changed my mind about going there. I went past the Coghills’ and up the road behind Dickie Pudding’s house and then I got on Myra Street and hoofed it ’til I came to the rear of the shopping center.
Gladstein’s Continental wasn’t in the lot. He had closed his shop for the night.
Across Matson from the shopping center was a tiny apartment complex. I was familiar with the grounds and I knew where there was a small laundry separate from the other buildings.
I found a few hard chairs in there and threw myself down. No one was using the room; the washers and dryers were perfectly still. A fluorescent light winked and hummed above me. Occasionally it made a waspish noise and flickered like a strobe lamp. Somehow that lulled me into sleep.
When I got home it was six in the morning. Mom was lying on the carmine sofa, using her hands for a pillow; she raised her head when I came in. She didn’t say anything, she just told me to go to bed.
I admired her for that. It would have been so easy to yell, and she didn’t.
35
I BARRELED to Gladstein’s Saturday afternoon, hoping to get there before Snead came with his buffer. As I was entering the store I noticed a “Missing” poster in the window, with Gaylord’s name on it.
“Witcher!” Gladstein hollered. “What has kept you away so long? What other tragedies are plaguing our El Dorado Hills?” He was wearing the doleful countenance of a veteran actor whom people get sentimental about too late in his career.
“Hi Mr. Gladstein.” I took a quick look around the store. “Last time I came you had customers.”
“Did you take a picture? I might need it as proof.” I heard his dogs sniffing at the back room door. “I meant proof I had customers,” he said. He thought I hadn’t got the joke. “So tell me,” he went on, “have you been out with the search-andrescue parties?”
“I don’t think they’d want a Witcher coming along. Everybody thinks my brother killed Gaylord.”
“What do you think?”
I just shrugged. “Myra gave me the ring back,” I said.
“Boy, you two are like Romeo and Juliet.”
“I feel you should know: when Myra gave me the ring I threw it over my shoulder, and now it’s lost in the woods.”
Gladstein took this harder than I expected. He bit his lip and wrinkled his brow.
“Is it still lost?”
“Yes sir. I’ve gone back a couple times looking for it. I do have the bracelet, I found that.”
“You threw the bracelet away as well?”
“Yes sir, I’m sorry.”
I offered the bracelet and he snatched it. He unlocked a drawer with the key around his neck and placed it carefully inside.
“You have to find that ring, Witcher, this is no joke.”
“I’ll go back and look.”
“You can’t throw magic away like that. Magic will turn against you. I’m serious, I could be affected by this too. What did you throw it away for?”
“I don’t know. If she didn’t want it I didn’t either.”
Gladstein shook his finger at me. “Now I might lose my protection.”
“From getting robbed? Oh no, you won’t get robbed.”
“Who said anything about getting robbed?”
“Well, when you told me about the burglar alarm you said you never got it fixed.”
“Yes. Well, guess what? I’ve had it fixed! I took your asking as an omen. I called the burglary people and they came and repaired it.”
I had saved Pop! If only he knew!
Gladstein and I grinned back and forth.
And then he frowned.
“Witcher, listen. I have never worried about getting robbed. Do you seriously believe we take anything with us when we leave this world? People are fools, vain fools.” Gladstein shrugged, philosophically surveying the world from atop his stool.
We mulled this over for a moment. Then, seizing the opportunity for further reflection, I said, “Do you believe in God?”
“Well, I don’t know. Magic I do believe in. That’s in the Bible too, you know. Moses, Aaron, they were world-class magicians. You don’t mess around with the Big Guy, He’ll send plagues and frogs. It’s all very supernatural.”
“My mom doesn’t believe in God.”
“She doesn’t? And what about you?”
“I believe in God, it’s people I don’t believe in.”
“Smart kid. You might have a future.”
“I’m sorry about the ring,” I said.
“Where is it, exactly?”
“In the woods behind Dickie Pudding’s house.”
“Yes, I’m acquainted with Dickie Pudding’s father. Something tells me he isn’t exactly pleased with people of my persuasion.”
The extent of Gladstein’s intelligence on neighborhood matters always surprised me.
“That was the friend’s father I was telling you about, the one that’s in the KKK.”
“Well, it’s settled. If I go in the Pudding woods I’m likely to be lynched. Which means it’s up to you to find the ring.” Gladstein rested the side of his head against his fingertips. He stayed that way a moment, prayerful, and then he said, “So your mother is
an atheist.”
Through the window I saw Snead’s truck trundling into the lot.
“Here comes Snead,” I said. “He told me he’s coming to your house tonight.”
Gladstein glanced absentmindedly towards the window and turned back, awaiting my reply. We were still staring back and forth when the prissy bell announced Snead’s entry.
I bolted immediately, avoiding Snead’s eyes, and ran to the Pudding woods. I searched high and low. I kicked aside leaves and turned over rocks. I traversed the entire system of paths. I stared cynically at the scampering squirrels: what if one had absconded with Gladstein’s ring and buried it for the winter? I sat on a flattened tree trunk and observed the people sauntering along the road, on their daily trek to the shopping center—mainly kids. Then I heard the sound of high heels.
I straightened up.
Mom!
This was the end of one of her working Saturdays (she worked every other weekend), and now she was on her way home. I watched her figure pass, obscured by the trees. Her head was bent. Her lips were moving silently, preparing briefs and justifications for her life. Seeing her made me want to pray. I squeezed my eyes and saw an image of Gaylord’s corpse instead.
I dashed out of the woods and fell in behind her. By the time I made it around the curve she had already turned on Stanley. She was ahead of me by the length of a football field.
Only a few people had ventured outside that day. Many were on vacation, and those with air-conditioning had found shelter in their dens and TV rooms. There would be no gauntlet to pass through, and for Mom’s sake I was thankful. Poor Mom. She was the quiet Witcher. No one knew how to place her; hers was guilt by association. And yet she had committed the one unpardonable sin. She had spawned new Witchers. For all that, the better sort of people pitied her. They knew about her vocabulary, her mastery of show tunes. Many in the neighborhood attributed my good grades to her genes, to her influence.
I was coming up on her heels and preparing to call her name, but the sudden memory of the image of Gaylord’s corpse slowed me down and made me not want to go home. The very idea of seeing Pop and Stan filled me with dread. What if Pop went ahead with it, what if he robbed Gladstein anyway?
After I passed the drainage ditch I veered off course and thrashed through the weeds all the way to Matson and walked along the side of the road. I could feel the traffic at my back. Occasionally a car would honk and some kid would shout at me as it flew by. I passed the front of the Pudding house, where Mr. Pudding was cutting a swath across his sloping lawn with his riding mower. He didn’t return my wave.
I wound up at the laundry near Gladstein’s store, the one I’d slept in the other night. This time dirty clothes were tumbling in the washers and people were coming in to fold and sort; but no one paid attention to me.
When it was dark I crossed over to the shopping center. Gladstein’s Continental and Snead’s truck had vanished from the lot. I peeked in the window of the jewelry store—still as a movie set. I trotted around and passed the sewing store. In the alley I took a position behind Gladstein’s shop, on the grassy hill behind it. I rested my back against the chain-link fence. Soon a white lady came along, picking up bottles and throwing them in a bag. Then a black man passed through the alley singing “Cool Jerk” by the Capitols.
I sat until I grew hungry and then I ran to the vending machine in front of the gas station at Karen and Matson and bought a bag of peanuts and a Coke and brought ’em on back. I must have hung around until eleven—I stayed a long time, I know that. Eventually I could barely hold my eyes open and I was bored out of my mind. So I went on home. Mom and Pop were on the couch in the living room, watching TV.
Seeing Pop with his legs stretched across Mom’s lap made my vigil seem quixotic, unwise. He was a poor sap uselessly quagmired in the sludge of domesticity, that’s all. I almost felt a pang of sorrow for him. And then he gave me a slow-burning slant of the eyes.
“Where on earth have you been?” Mom said.
“Out.”
“Well, no lie! Where did you go?”
“I needed to go somewhere and think.”
“You were with Myra Joyner, weren’t you?”
“Forget Myra Joyner.”
Pop swung his legs away from Mom’s lap and followed me down to the bedroom. I was worried he was coming to hit me, but I stayed cool. I switched on the overhead light and he closed the door behind us.
“You see I’m here.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m here, I ain’t breaking into jewelry stores.”
“Fine,” I said.
“So your little fantasy didn’t mean a thing. Your friend is safe, you see that.”
“Yes sir.”
“All right then. Just keep your mouth shut about what you think you know about me.” He gave me one last evil glare and stepped out of the room.
I was on the bed, gazing at the shut door—even the door seemed disgusted with me.
My brother was gone and the dread night had passed. I was dead tired, and I wanted to be light-years away in sleep by the time Stan got home.
36
IN THE MORNING I found him at the table slurping cereal from his bowl. A news report came on the radio about the search for Gaylord and Stan reached across the table and turned the radio off. He belched sonorously and Mom said, “Stop it, you pig.”
Pop delivered a jab to my shoulder. “What’s the word, sport.”
“Nothing.”
Stan slid back his chair.
“Where are you off to?” Mom said.
“The pool. You coming?” he asked me. I’d have happily taken a dip on this hot and humid day, but not with him. I told him no.
He headed out the back screen door, slamming it.
“Let’s take a ride,” Pop said.
“Where to?”
“To the park. I’ll grab my sketchbook, I wanna do some drawings by the lake.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to be seen with him in public. I thought he had quit drawing, anyway.
“Come on, don’t be a stickin-the-mud.”
“I’m not feeling that well.”
Pop kicked back his chair and left the room, irritated. Mom flicked her eyes towards the door, indicating some thought she was having.
A little solitude, that’s all I needed. And yet the less I wanted to be around Pop and Stan the more they wanted to be around me.
In the afternoon Stan returned with Anya and asked if I wanted to go to the quarry. He meant the old granite quarry on an island in the river that could be reached via a footbridge. The quarry had flooded years ago and now locals hung out there on hot days, somersaulting in.
Anya was laughing against Stan’s shoulder, making faces. Every time she looked at me she burst out laughing all over. Mom was keeping an eagle eye on her.
I nudged my toe against the rug.
Stan left the room.
“What’s so funny?” Mom said.
“Nothing.” Anya bit her lip.
Stan reappeared holding an orange juice carton.
“I hope you aren’t drinking out of that,” Mom said.
He swigged from the carton deliberately. “You coming to the quarry or not?”
“Mom told you not to do that.”
He yanked Anya away with him. We heard the GTO fire up and rumble off and then Mom padded down the hall in her slippers. I sat on the sofa, staring through the window panel with the missing screen. Pop stepped in; he had been in the yard. He snapped his fingers as he passed through the room. He went to the kitchen, came back.
“Come on, let’s take a ride.”
“Where to?”
“It’s Sunday, let’s take a ride.”
“Why, so you can give me a lecture?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I followed him outside. The Ford was glaring and broiling in the yard. We always kept a towel across the front seat to keep it from scorching us when we got in.
�
��I don’t wanna go riding, it’s too hot.”
“Come on, we never do anything anymore.”
I was scared of him and my brother and I wanted them to leave me alone. I was going to be a lone wolf from now on.
“I don’t wanna go, Pop. Just let me not go.”
“How’d you get to be such a pain in the ass, will you tell me that?”
I went inside and grabbed a Mark Twain book from my room and took it to the brackish creek and sat against a tree, reading. A yellow smell, sulfur or something, was emanating from the creek. The song of the insects swelled and receded. Chiggers were biting. I kept scratching red marks on my legs. An hour passed, and then I heard someone thrashing through the brush.
I looked up, and here came Stan with Anya.
“I thought you were going to the quarry,” I said.
“Changed our minds.”
Stan rolled a joint with quick, kneading fingers.
Anya fell next to me, out of breath. “What are you reading?”
I showed her the cover, Pudd ’nhead Wilson.
“What’s that about?”
“Fingerprinting.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s about an amateur detective who takes people’s fingerprints for fun and later he solves a murder because he has the prints of the guy that did it.”
“What are you looking at me for?” Stan said.
“I’m not.”
The insects sounded like they were laughing. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed around our ears.
Stan lit the joint and passed it to Anya. It smelled foul, sweet, sinister. I didn’t like being around while they were smoking grass. I stood up and dusted the seat of my pants.
“Where you going? Come on, take a hit.”
“No, I’m leaving.”
Anya ballooned her cheeks, spat smoke, snatched my ankle. “Come on Jack, don’t go.”
“I don’t like being around that stuff.”
“He’s such a good boy,” Stan sneered.
“So? It’s sweet.”
“Witchers ain’t sweet.”
Anya tugged at my ankle. “Come on, sit down.”
I fell to a sitting position.
“Tell us more about your book.”
“It’s by Mark Twain. It’s a detective story.”
“Why are you interested in detective stories?” Stan said.
“I’ve always liked Mark Twain.”
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